Even though it was far less chaotic and stressful than previous years, it’s still good to have E3 wrapped up and behind us. Overall, the show went about as well as we could have hoped. The theater was absolutely packed on the last day of the show. I won’t even give a number for the last demo of the show in case any fire marshals are lurking about.

I hope they make the logistics a little easier for the press to get around. The major complaints I heard from them were about getting from place to place, and the fact that everyone has a news conference and all of them are completely pointless and should be done away with. Other random thoughts and observations from the trip:

Has anyone actually confirmed that Puzzle Quest has an end? I feel like I’ve been playing this game since childhood.

It’s always very interesting to sit around with some of the journos after the show and hear what they liked. We excluded Fallout 3 from the conversation and talked about everyone’s favorite games of the show. Rock Band and Call of Duty 4 were included on most lists. Also discussed were LittleBigPlanet, Echochrome, Super Mario Galaxy and several others.

Number of folks are excited about Bioshock, although they didn’t really see it at the show since it’s out so soon. Ken Levine actually stopped by our booth to hang out for a bit. Good guy. You can tell he’s been pushing it hard on the road doing press stuff. He looked like he needed a nap. Or a beer. Or both.

The P.F. Chang’s on Wilshire in Santa Monica features a brilliant actress named Keirsten Lyons who needs to catch a big break. She’s hilarious. We went back there for dinner a second night just because she was a lot of fun, well and it was close, and the food was good. Even Emil likes the food there, which he described as a “step up in every regard” to the usual places he’s subjected to for Chinese food (see his rant here for more on that).

The only thing that could make today better other than E3 being over is the fact that tomorrow is pretty much a holy day/festival for guys like Ashley, Matt, Todd and myself, as the new NCAA football game comes out and we basically ignore everything else in our lives for long periods of time. I’m curious to see how good Wake Forest is this year. We won the ACC last season…they have to bump us up at least a little in terms of talent and ability.

I got food poisoning on Friday night and had to fly back Saturday morning in less-than-spectatular shape. Having had to deal with this twice this year already (I also got it in Florida and in Europe on a press tour), let me tell you, flying on a plane in that state sucks, big time. I’m fairly certain I’m going to forgo the chicken sandwiches next year in favor of takeout from someplace close by. I’m pretty sure I can live on yummy cupcakes and PF Chang’s for five days, if necessary.

After the bobblehead alone went for over $100, somebody sold their whole kit worth of Fallout 3 schwag for $406 on eBay. No chance in hell I’d ever sell mine, but hey, whatever pays the rent, I guess.

I’ve already started counting down the days before I have to go to Leipzig and do this all over again. Ugh. I hope they have good cupcakes.